The Morale of Christian Clergy Is Taking a Big Hit

No surprise, given the mess their religion is in

 

1.     Christians can’t agree on who is right, what god wants

 

When Christians are off to church on a Sunday morning, they might have to drive past a few churches of other denominations. Apparently it never crosses their minds to stop at one of these—after all, “We’re all Christians, aren’t we?” But that’s exactly the problem: Christians have never been able to agree on what Christianity is. They’ve been fighting about this for centuries; the Catholic/Protestant divide is especially pronounced. We can be sure Catholics won’t stop at Protestant churches, and Protestants—with contempt and ridicule for the Vatican—wouldn’t think of stopping at a Catholic church.

  

 

There’s a lot of confidence about who is right, based on…what exactly? Based on what authority figures—parents, priests, preachers—have taught the devout from their earliest years. These religious truths become part of life; they constitute the comfort of believing, and, as I heard a Catholic women remark recently, “We were told not to think about it.” Because, when people do think about it, there’s likely to be pushback. It’s no surprise that church membership has been declining, because the world we live in provides so much information that undermines, contradicts, basic Christian beliefs. Professional apologists, in a panic, attempt to rise to this considerable challenge: “We’ve got to show that our brand of the Christian faith is the one true religion!” 

 

2.     The devout can’t explain exactly why their beliefs are true

 

“We were told not to think about it.” Of course, there are so many things that shouldn’t be thought about. For example: “Why am I a devout Baptist or Catholic—instead of something else?” That depends on family and geography. It’s pretty likely, if you were born in Poland, you’ll be Catholic. If you were born in rural Alabama, no surprise if you’re evangelical. If you were born in Egypt, the odds are overwhelming you’d be Muslim. Yet those who have been carefully groomed to believe in the truth of these religions seldom seem to wonder if they’re right, after all—and how to prove it. That’s precisely the danger of thinking about it. “We can’t all be right”—maybe that’s a clue we're all wrong. Maybe we've been misled, deceived by your   parents and clergy, who were also carefully groomed. Christians especially, when they look around at so many different brands of the own religion, should realize that something is terribly wrong: the faulty grooming has gone on for hundreds of years.

 

Many years ago, when I was a Methodist minister in small towns, it was not unusual for the clergy to arrange ecumenical services. That is, there would be a grand mixing of the congregations of the various denominations, Catholic and several Protestant. This was done to show how much the followers of Jesus loved each other, and got along. It was show business, because, in truth, the clergy who presided, and the parishioners who showed up, held very different ideas about god and Jesus. The clergy were always very cordial with each other, but we dared not actually discuss theology!

 

Nor did we dare to wonder how to demonstrate which of the various Christian brands was actually the right one—the one that Jesus or the apostle Paul would have said, “Yes, that’s it!” Not that this could ever happen: there is so much theological incoherence in the New Testament; Paul’s theology, which we read in his letters, was hopelessly messed up—and we have no way of verifying anything attributed to Jesus in the gospels. 

 

It would be many years later—in 2013—that John Loftus published his book, The Outsider Test of Faith: How to Know Which Religion Is True. It’s really not rocket science: step back from your faith and evaluate it the same way you would other religions you deem to the faulty, inferior. 

 

But Christians have been trained not to think about it. Hence when Mormon missionaries or Jehovah’s Witnesses come knocking at the door, most Christians send them on their way, giving no thought whatever to how they could show conclusively that these religions are wrong—while their own brand of faith is the right one. This would require a grasp of epistemology: that is, how can you verify that your ways of knowing about god are reliable? “Well, I’m sure my parents and clergy told me the truth” doesn’t work at all. Did these authority figures make any effort at all to verify that their ways of knowing about god were reliable? It’s vital to break the endless cycle of “someone else told me.” All the claimed ways for knowing about god are, in fact, unreliable and defective: revelations (e.g. scripture), visions, prayers, meditations. Most religions rely on these various mediums—and come up with vastly different understandings of god.

 

If the outsider test of faith is applied rigorously to one’s own faith, there is little hope that this faith will measure up. Note that we’re not looking for proof: we’re asking the devout to provide reliable, verifiable, objective data about god(s). 

 

3.     In recent years, the Christian mess has become an even bigger mess

 

John Loftus’ 2013 book, mentioned above—and about a dozen of his other books—is part of a much larger phenomenon. Since the year 2000, well more than 500 books have been published explaining, in detail, the falsification of theism, Christianity especially. Books by Richard Dawkins (The God Delusion), Christopher Hitchens (God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything), and Sam Harris (The End of Faith) were instrumental in launching, or at least stimulating, this surge in atheist publishing. But books are only part of a much bigger picture: “The Internet is where religion comes to die” —I’ve seen this attributed to various people—but it means that information about the harmful impact religion, and its feeble foundations, is so easily accessible. There are countless blogs, podcasts, YouTube channels devoted to explaining just how bad and faulty religion is. Of course, apologists have risen to this challenge; they have their own blogs, podcasts, and YouTube channels. But atheism has found its voice as never before. 

 

So the clergy have to make their way in this new, hostile, environment. It’s no surprise they’re not doing all that well. This recent headline caught my attention—where else, on the Internet:

'Exhausted' pastors suffering decline in overall health, respect, friendship: study

Here are four excerpts:

“The overall health of pastors in the U.S. has declined markedly since 2015, with increasing numbers who say that they face declining respect from their community and a lack of true friends, according to a recent study.”

“Data collected by faith-based organization Barna Group as part of its Resilient Pastor research showed a significant decrease in pastors' spiritual, mental and emotional well-being, as well as their overall quality of life, between 2015 and 2022, the group announced last week.”

“Pastors who reported that their mental and emotional health was below average spiked from 3% in 2015 to 10% in 2022, and those who said they were in excellent mental and emotional health cratered from 39% in 2015 to 11% last year.”

“The recent report dovetails with another poll that Barna released last March that showed the rates of burnout among pastors had risen dramatically within the past year, with a staggering 42% of ministers wondering if they should abandon their vocation altogether amid unsustainable stress and loneliness."

“…declining respect from their community…”  “…amid unsustainable stress and loneliness.”

This should surprise no one. Mainline Protestant denominations have been declining for years, and the most conservative brands of Christianity have brought no end of embarrassment. Who could have imagined the evangelical embrace of Donald Trump? How does it possibly make sense that the folks most devoted to god—well, they would have us believe it—turned this corrupt, evil person into a hero of the faith? Some have given up on him, but he still commands a large following. Moreover American democracy is under threat from these fanatics who want to abolish separation of church and state, who are eager to institute a theocracy. Because, you know, they are the only ones who are right about god. How could Pat Robertson be wrong when he blamed 9/11 on homosexuality and abortion? 

How can Catholic clergy maintain morale in the face of the ongoing scandal of child-rape? The headlines about new cases keep coming. Most priests are not pedophiles—well, we certainly hope not—but the reputation of their church has been tarnished beyond repair. The church has paid out billions of dollars in legal settlements. Even worse—if that’s possible—are the theological implications: is it not within the power of their god to intervene somehow when a priest is about to rape a child? How can the good clergy face their congregations? Trying to maintain holy celibacy must contribute to unsustainable stress and loneliness. 

Yet another example of the Christian mess: the Catholic church is evil enough because it champions misogyny—female priests? No, never! —is okay with homophobia, condemns contraception and abortion in the poorest of countries, and sits on enormous wealth. But in many parts of the world, it has been losing ground—no doubt because of the clergy-rape outrage—to an even more evil brand, Pentecostalism, which fully embraces ancient superstitions: the last thing the world needs. This can only bring grief to well-educated clergy. 

I wonder how many folks in the pews really pay attention to the sermons. Do they wonder: Is the preacher right about that point? Are they encouraged to get right on their cell-phone—before church is even over—and see if Google can provide them with answers? If people did that, and discovered that theobabble from the pulpit cannot be trusted at all, I suspect that the clergy would feel even more declining respect from their community.

 

 

 

David Madison was a pastor in the Methodist Church for nine years, and has a PhD in Biblical Studies from Boston University. He is the author of two books, Ten Tough Problems in Christian Thought and Belief: a Minister-Turned-Atheist Shows Why You Should Ditch the Faith (2016; 2018 Foreword by John Loftus) and Ten Things Christians Wish Jesus Hadn’t Taught: And Other Reasons to Question His Words (2021). The Spanish translation of this book is also now available. 

 

His YouTube channel is here. He has written for the Debunking Christianity Blog since 2016.

 

The Cure-for-Christianity Library©, now with more than 500 titles, is here. A brief video explanation of the Library is here.